sunday: november 29th
There's always a lot going around in the world. But there's always even more going on in your life, or at least that's what it feels like. The going can get tough, going through a rough patch, we all need our time to calm down and heal, and figure out what's wrong. But sometimes being continually exposed to external toxicity can slow you down.
Understanding what goes on inside our lives is vital to living better, along with everything that happens around us. Everything, is connected. An extension of the Butterfly Effect (which this mail is not about), but it doesn't hurt to remember once in a while that the wings of a butterfly being flapped halfway across the world can create a tornado on the other. I say all this, not to highlight the fact that there's a lot that's not in our control, but to bring focus to how Lorenz (the Butterfly Effect is closely associated with his work) might have discovered such a phenomenon.
Breaking things down, is key. Everything. That's the point I was getting at.
You have a mammoth project to work on? Break it down. A friend asked me what're some good ideas for self-rewards when completing tasks, break a task down into five sub-tasks, and see for yourself how better and calmer you feel when you check off all those five tasks one by one. That's satisfaction multiplied by five, instead of just one. Not even factoring in how much calmer you'll feel with continual progress made with the project.
Something traumatic happened? Break down the events that went into play. Understand why you feel horrible, and if it's not understandable (as a lot of things can usually be), know that it's okay to feel horrible and submerge yourself in the sorrow till you're ready to come back up. There is no pressure.
And as always, don't just do this when something bad happens. Do it when something good happens too and see how you'll have a greater sense of understanding of what goes on in life. This is not adding a level of complexity to the already humongous amount of thinking you must be doing, it is simplifying it. It is doing something, to make everything else easier.
